HIGH SCHOOL ICE HOCKEY: Robbinsville avoids upset against Hopewell

WEST WINDSOR — Robbinsville continued its steady roll toward the CVC’s Colonial Division hockey title Monday with a 3-1 win over Hopewell Valley, but the Bulldogs certainly made the Ravens earn the win.

“They definitely stepped it up a lot. Since we’re one of the top-tier public school teams in the CVC I think they really wanted to upset us. They came out hustling and they played a real good game,” said Ravens forward Chris Deck.

Deck scored what turned out to be the game-winning goal late in the second period — scoring off the face-off on an assist from Coleman Sousa.

“It seemed like we were controlling play so we felt like eventually we’d get our bounces. We kept at it,” Deck said. “Eventually we pulled through and got the win.”

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The win for the Ravens (14-4-1, 11-1 CVC) was made more impressive since they were missing five players due to injury or illness.

“We’ve been all about depth this year and being able to throw three quality lines out there and four or five d-men,” said Ravens coach Dan Bergan. “(Today) we actually had five forwards. We had to pull a d-man up to play forward and that meant another guy, Anthony Puchino, had to pinch hit in D. But he did a nice job filling in.”

The Bulldogs (5-12-1, 5-6-1 CVC) were short-handed as well, playing without head coach Rob Donovan who was missing his third game due to illness. But under assistant coach Ray Altieri the Bulldogs more than held their own.

Robbinsville’s Eric Hildebrand scored the only goal of the first period with 7:44 left; lasering a shot just under the cross bar from below the right circle.

But after that goal the Bulldogs went toe-to-toe with Ravens in a physical contest that saw both teams sent to the box several times in the second period.

“Our work ethic is huge. We try to wear teams down and try to make that the reason we stay in games and can win,” said Bulldogs’ senior Max Daley. “It’s all just working hard and playing for one another; trying to play like a team and not individually.”

Robbinsville’s Zack Bryan stretched the Ravens’ lead to 3-0 with a goal 59 seconds into the third period but the Bulldogs got that goal back when Aubrey Toland scored off a feed from Trevor Wiedman just 12 seconds after Bryan’s goal.

Hopewell Valley came close a couple times in the third period, including hitting the post twice, but could not get any closer.

“They had a lot of good chances,” Bergan said. “That third line (which the Ravens were missing due to injury) is the one that keeps all three lines jumping and we were slowing down as the game went on. They were battling. It was a tough hockey game. The shots were 34-33 so both teams are right there except for a couple of snipes.”

As has been the case most of the year, those “snipes” went the Ravens’ way.

“We’re playing game-to-game but our goal is to get two state wins and to get to the Mercer County finals and ultimately find revenge against Notre Dame in the finals. We’re working towards that,” said Deck afterwards.

The young Bulldogs, despite their record, are playing like a team that could be very dangerous in the county tournament, too.

“That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to make sure we can make a good run and surprise a lot of teams and catch them off guard,” Daley said. “If we play our game that we have been playing we’ll do fine.”